


you smell like coconut and bad decisions

by Hewt



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Community: theoldguardkinkmeme, Falling In Love, M/M, Mutual Pining, Prompt Fill, nicky just can't think properly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-05
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:27:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27408049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hewt/pseuds/Hewt
Summary: Prompt fill for this prompt at The Old Guard Kink Meme:The new guy in Nicky's share house is upsettingly hot. Hot when he stumbles out of his room with bed mussed hair, when he's coming back from the shower glistening in a low slung towel, when he's cooking and nodding along to music in their kitchen. Nicky is dying and spends a lot of time hissing into the phone about it in Italian.Joe is just trying to get through the last year of his masters and, while admittedly he's been having a little fun with it, knows it's probably time to try and weave the fact that he speaks Italian into a conversation with his hot house mate.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 167
Kudos: 808





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I saw this prompt and just had to fill it. It has so much potential, and I'm really hoping I'm doing it justice. Nicky is studying paramedic science in here, just for the funsies. I like having him in a medical field. :P 
> 
> I wrote this all in one go and it's unbetaed; all mistakes are sadly entirely mine!  
> Second part will be up soon!

The thing is, Nicky doesn’t have time for distractions.

He is doing mostly night shifts for his placement practice, he has his usual course work to worry about, he is doing volunteer work at the nursing home a few streets over to get more experience, he has a social life he is sort of trying to breathe some new life into and he has his family nagging him about maybe, finally, getting a boyfriend.

He doesn’t have the time, he has said it to them countless times before, but every single week when his mama calls, it is the same question that she leads the conversation with: “When are we going to meet him?”

Well, if Nicky keeps ingesting coffee like this, his heart might be stopping soon enough for his usual exasperated “I’m not dating anyone, mama” to turn into a definite “Never”.

He doesn’t see his flatmates very often, to the point that most of them know he exists because _someone_ must be cooking pasta at 2am, and burning through a ridiculous amount of coffee to boot, and most of his interactions with them are of the awkward kind when one of them is shimmying out of the tiny, mouldy bathroom dripping wet because apparently remembering to bring a towel when going out to shower is really fucking difficult for some people.

It’s fine, Nicky doesn’t care. He hasn’t spent the past two years transforming his room into a barren space that screams productivity just to spend his time at home socialising with guys he doesn’t know. If he wants emotional support or, god forbid, small talk, of any kind, then there’s the campus and the library and some people from his coursethat are sort of his friends, that he sees outside of lectures once every two weeks to go to the pub.

So, he has read somewhere in the WhatsApp group chat he shares with his flatmates, usually filled with complaints about the state of the bathroom or the dishwasher or the kinky sex that Alex likes to have at 5am, that Sam was moving out and they had already found a replacement, everyone meet random-guy-number-five that Nicky is probably never going to meet outside of the aforementioned awkward bathroom shimmy.

It’s 4am and he is nearly nodding off while he waits for the percolator to finish brewing, as the door opposite the kitchen opens and a guy comes walking out. He has the adorable sort of bed head that one can only get from quality sleep (what even is sleep, if not a myth?) and he is in nothing but his boxer briefs as he shuffles out of the room, eyes so squinted they’re nearly closed against the bright light of the kitchen.

And just like that, Nicky is completely and utterly awake.

He doesn’t recognise the guy, which means he must be the new one, because if that body was still damp with water from a shower and those hands were clutching clothes in front of his naked parts while he tried to awkwardly shuffle pass Nicky after a towel-less shower? Well, Nicky would have fucking remembered.

He has a defined torso with nicely sculpted abs and strong shoulders, his skin is the kind that makes Nicky wonder how soft it would feel if he were to brush his fingertips over it, how nicely it would bruise if he were to dig his teeth into the junction between shoulder and neck. He has amazing hair, curly and springy and all over the place, and a fluffy beard that shines delightfully under the bright artificial light.

Has Nicky mentioned that he also hasn’t gotten properly laid in a long, long ass time?

Because his body certainly remembers.

His mouth is dry and hanging open, his heart racing in his throat without even the added energy surge of caffeine, and he follows the guy’s shape as he shuffles blindly toward the bathroom. He doesn’t look any more awake when he returns a few minutes later, his underwear hanging sinfully low on his hips and barely clinging onto the bulge of his dick, some dark curls escaping over the waistband, and Nicky is left speechless as he shuffles back into his bedroom to go back to sleep.

He pulls the percolator off the stove with more force than advisable while he browses through the group chat and tries manically to find the announcement about their new flatmate.

It’s there, buried under two months’ worth of complaints and memes that Nicky doesn’t think are funny.

His name is Joe, Nicky learns, and he is in his master’s of an art history degree, and he uses an excessive amount of exclamation marks and smiling emojis when he announces that he’s really glad to have found a place, and that he’s excited to be living with them all.

“What’s gotten into you this morning?” Andy asks when he arrives at the base, wearing sunglasses even though it’s 5am and she really has no pretences left to uphold, an amused smirk curling around her mouth.

Nicky can only wallow in misery as the thought that follows that statement is a horrible, starved thing: the real problem, after all, is what _hasn’t_ gotten into him this morning (a dick belonging to the most beautiful guy he has ever seen, that’s what).

–

It takes both entirely too long and too short for him to run into Joe again.

He has just forced himself out of bed after an entirely too short to be satisfying nap about a week after the morning spectacle, when he’s just gotten to the tail end of three consecutive night shifts and he has the delightful task in his hands to try to correct his sleep rhythm as he has early morning classes tomorrow, and he is stumbling into the kitchen to the delicious smell of home-cooked food.

He should know that it’s not one of his other flatmates, whose cooking repertoire doesn’t expand much farther than frozen pizzas and instant noodles, and the spices that linger in the air are entirely too exotic for their blond arses anyway. So he’s not sure why he is so terribly surprised he nearly physically recoils when it’s _him_ who is whistling along to a merry tune as he dances around the kitchen.

Joe is wearing a dark red shirt that hugs his torso in all the right places, and trousers that are absolutely criminal in the way they cling to his ass. The apron he wears has the tacky phrase “Kiss the cook, but don’t touch the buns!” written across it, red lips surrounding the first words and bread rolls the last few. It takes an awful lot of Nicky’s self-restraint to keep himself from fantasising too hard about doing both those things, but he manages. Somewhat.

He is painfully aware that he himself is wearing an old shirt that was once white but is now a dusty grey due to too many washings with his dark laundry, and soft fleece flannel pyjama pants. Combined with his bed hair and the dark bags underneath his eyes, he knows he doesn’t exactly look his best this afternoon. As a matter of fact, he doubts he even looks like a living human at this point.

Still, he forces himself to cross the tiny space from doorway to kitchen counter, only to realise with a feeling of sinking dread that Joe, beautiful, gorgeous Joe who is so invested in the herbs he is chopping and the tune he is whistling to not have noticed Nicky’s arrival, has completely hogged all the burners on the stove and there is no place for his percolator.

“Oh hey, good afternoon!” Joe greets, his voice warm and smooth and lovely and with a chuckle that makes Nicky grab the handle of the percolator tightly.

“Hi,” he says, his voice croaking as the remnants of sleep are still clinging desperately to his exhausted body.

“I don’t think we have met yet, I’m Joe,” Joe says, putting down his knife to extend his hand to shake Nicky’s.

And Nicky, who has apparently lost all common sense along with his ability to function, takes his hand to shake it and says, like the total and utter creep he is, “I know.”

It’s humiliation at its very finest. Like Nicky _needs_ anything else to keep him awake at night when he should really be sleeping, like the constant stress he’s in isn’t enough reason for him to struggle to relax, he’s made an absolute socially-incompetent dick out of himself in their very first conversation.

But Joe doesn’t look put out, if anything, his smile just turns more sympathetic. “You probably need the stove for that, right? Let me just take a pan off, one second.” As Joe continues to do exactly that, Nicky is still mentally beating himself with a shoe and thinking if now is as good a time as any to flee and die a very deserved social-awkwardness-induced death. He shouldn’t have gotten up when his alarm went off, he should have just slept, morning classes be damned. It’s just not safe for him to being amongst people.

“Here you go,” Joe says sweetly, gesturing at the spot on the stove he’s cleared for Nicky.

“Thanks.” Nicky blinks himself back into the present and starts to heap coffee grounds into the percolator, standing entirely too close to Joe for comfort as they share the tiny kitchen space.

“You’re Nicky, right?”

Had he not even introduced himself? “Yes, I’m Nicky,” he breathes, trying not to choke on the wave of self-hatred that goes through him, “and I swear I’m a lot more coherent once I’ve had coffee.”

“It’s okay, don’t worry about it. Seems like you have a pretty tough schedule. And believe me, you don’t want to see me in the mornings before I’ve had my coffee. I think there’s zombies that are more coherent.” He pulls a face and Nicky would have laughed, really, if his mind isn’t stuck on remembering exactly what Joe looks like when he stumbles out of bed in the morning.

Very hot, very sexy, and very much too sleepy to remember Nicky staring at him from the kitchen while he stumbles over to the bathroom, apparently. Which is good; apparently there’s still something out there that’s watching over Nicky and being somewhat merciful.

Nicky adds water and puts the percolator over heat, turning around and slumping against the counter. “It’s been a week, yes,” he says as he runs his hand through his hair. Joe has gone back to chopping his herbs and makes a sympathetic noise when he does so, because Joe is apparently like that. Considerate and not half-dead on a Sunday afternoon.

Nicky stares at the flaking plaster in front of him while Joe cooks. When his coffee has finally finished brewing and he’s taken the first few sips, he feels considerably more alive and human than before.

“What are you making?” he asks, gazing curiously at the many pots that are bubbling away on the stove.

“Shakshouka,” Joe says, munching on a piece of carrot. “I’m having a potluck with some friends.”

“It smells amazing,” Nicky praises, and Joe smiles warmly.

“I’ll make it for a Thursday evening dinner sometime, if you promise to come.”

The thing is, Nicky knows that shared Thursday dinners are a thing in this flat, but aside from his very first week after he’d just moved in and was too tired to cook, he’s never attended one. He likes cooking, he likes doing it for people too, but he is just not okay with spending a day in the kitchen to be served fish and chips from the snack bar around the corner when it’s someone else’s turn.

“Okay,” he hears himself agreeing. And then, before he can embarrass himself further or make any more stupid decisions: “But I really have to, uh, shower. So I will see you later, Joe. Have a good time with your friends.” And he flees.

Later that day, after he’s showered and avoided the kitchen until he is absolutely certain that Joe had gone to his potluck dinner, he goes to get groceries and then starts cooking the meal he will probably be eating for the rest of the week, with the crazy amount of pasta he’s accidentally toppled into the water after his mind started supplying him with memories about what Joe looked like this afternoon while he was prancing around the kitchen.

So, he does what any sensible man would do: he grabs his phone and calls his sister.

She is delighted to sit through a ten minute tirade of him complaining and drooling over Joe in equal parts, and while he’s not entirely convinced she is going to uphold her promise to not tell their mother about it, it feels good to have someone to vent to.

–

Joe seems to be on a one man mission to kill Nicky by merely existing, he’s sure of it.

Considering the little time Nicky spends at home and that Joe clearly has a life of his own as well, they don’t run into each other very often.

And, of course, their next meeting is one that was inevitable considering the particularly unpragmatic layout of the flat: Joe has to do the infamous after-shower shimmy.

To Joe’s credit, he hasn’t forgotten his towel, but that still doesn’t mean that he’s spent any time at all using it while in the dark cave they call a bathroom; his hair is still damp, the curls even curlier than usual somehow, and there’s droplets still clinging to his skin, rolling down those delicious pecs in a way that can only be described as truly, utterly irresistible.

Joe looks sheepish when he sees Nicky, now half-sandwiched between Joe’s almost naked body (that low slung towel that appears to be clinging to Joe’s hips through force of will only is doing so, _so_ little to keep Nicky’s imagination from wandering) and the door. There’s really almost no way for him to go, so Nicky presses himself into the corner and hopes for the best as Joe excuses himself and shimmies past, Nicky staring stubbornly at a mouldy spot on the ceiling so he doesn’t have to look at Joe when he’s so excruciatingly close.

“Sorry again!” Joe calls out before he disappears into his room, and Nicky finally allows himself to breathe.

The air smells heavily like coconut.

He wonders if it’s a body wash or perhaps a particular shampoo or even a beard oil – Joe’s beard does look particularly well-groomed, after all; he would totally be the kind of guy to use something like that – that smells like that, and both the thought and the smell linger as he continues on his way to his own bedroom.

He sits down behind his desk and pulls the stack of textbooks and notes he’s been ploughing through closer to him. He opens the physiology textbook and stares at the text in front of him. It’s hard to concentrate in the aftermath of seeing so much of Joe. His mind is mush.

He decides that maybe a shower will help clear his mind.

Really, Nicky isn’t proud of it, will deny it with every fibre of his being even, but with the scent of Joe in his nostrils and the memory of his amazing body so very fresh in his mind, he leans against the wall of the shower shortly after turning the water on and as his hand wraps around his cock, which is painfully hard already, he comes in an embarrassingly short time.

He feels ashamed as he watches the evidence wash away with the streaming water, disappearing down the drain.

And when he returns to his physiology coursework? He still can’t focus.

Later that day, he’s cooking and complaining to his sister in rapid-fire Italian, hissing into the phone in a way so utterly pathetic he’s got his sister’s hysterical laughter in his ear almost the entire time.

“Oh Nico,” Chiara says through her tears of laughter, “only you.”

–

Nicky’s life is a fucking disaster.

He sees Joe around the flat every now and again, but they never really talk. Most of their interactions can be summarised by them greeting each other, or short inquiries about how long they will still be using the kitchen for. Joe starts looking more and more tired as the semester drags on, deadlines catching up with him as much as they are with Nicky.

Still, that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t call Chiara at least once a week to complain about Joe.

She is always willing to listen, even if his ramblings sometimes have to be put on hold when she goes to feed the baby or to help a customer, depending on what time he’s calling her at, and she gives him the absolute worst advice.

“If I didn’t know better I would say he’s just pulling your leg,” she says after she’s recovered from a heavy bout of laughter at Nicky’s expense. Today’s story is about Joe waltzing into the kitchen in only a towel, once again low slung around his hips and barely holding on, excusing himself sweetly as he stepped up way too close to Nicky and stretched out to reach the top shelf of one of the cupboards, his towel slipping _even lower_ as he did so.

He had successfully retrieved the box of mint tea without losing the towel, but it was a close call.

Nicky had managed to tear his gaze away from Joe’s happy trail just in time to believably pretend he was facing his ragù the entire time and not Joe’s barely-covered dick.

_A fucking disaster_ , alright.

“How could he possibly?” Nicky grumbles, throwing his arm over his face. He’s stretched out on the sofa in the living room, which really is very comfy.

“Well, little brother,” Chiara starts, and Nicky can hear Mano, his little nephew, crying in the background. Chiara takes a moment to soothe him. “Have you considered that maybe you’re not being very subtle about being interested?”

“I am not interested!” he hisses.

“You’re kidding me, right? I haven’t even seen the guy and even I would be interested. He sounds like a catch, Nico.”

“I don’t have time!”

“Of course you have time. You just have to free your schedule a bit, get some quality time in with your man. A lot of students date and make it through university alright.”

“I don’t even know him very well.”

“I really am not hearing any proper reasons, just excuses. Take it from someone who has been listening to you drool about him for over a month now, you are interested.”

“He is fucking handsome,” Nicky agrees. “And very nice.”

“Win-win,” Chiara concludes. “You can’t convince me that you’re not daydreaming about suffocating between his very muscular thighs.”

“You are so not helping,” Nicky groans, grabbing a throw pillow and burying his face in it. Maybe it will be nice enough to help him out of his misery.

“I am, helping. Myself. By thinking about a very handsome guy. I just have to pretend it’s me he’s suffocating, otherwise it would get pretty gross.”

“Please stop, you are married.”

“That I am,” she sighs wistfully. “So tell me again, what exactly did he do last week?”

And that’s really all Nicky needs to fall into another tirade about the impossible hotness that is Joe prancing about shirtless, looking so fucking edible as he hums and dances around the kitchen waiting for the water to finish boiling for his tea. He doesn’t really try to stay quiet as he talks; it’s not like any of his flatmates know Italian, anyway.

–

Even Andy has notices him being off, and where his previous bouts of stress-induced daydreaming were mostly him trying to remember the anatomy of whatever organ system they were covering in classes that period, now he mostly finds himself thinking about Joe’s body glistening as he gets out of the shower and shimmies past Nicky, and his adorable bedhead when he gets out of bed early in the morning to use the bathroom.

Joe is the bane of Nicky’s existence, and he’s half considering simply not drinking any coffee anymore before his morning shifts (not that that is an actual possibility; he would die) when Andy bumps her shoulder hard against his and nearly sends him crashing into the side of the ambulance, his arms full of supplies.

“I want to know,” she says, holding out a mug of coffee in a gesture that could almost be an apology as Nicky still fumbles with his armfuls of material that nearly went crashing down the side of the ambulance. He snorts and throws it all onto the stretcher to sort out after he has finished his coffee. It’s dark and bitter and almost acceptable; he’s learnt to drink the shitty coffee of the base by now, but that doesn’t make him any happier about it. Andy laughs at the face he pulls when he swallows his first mouthful.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You are such a bad liar,” Andy tells him, and the mirth in her voice has just that little edge to it that tells Nicky that she is enjoying this far more than she should. Joe isn’t the bane of Nicky’s existence, he decides. Andy is. He glares at her, and Andy smirks back unperturbed.

“Just. Classes,” he tries, and yes, it’s not very convincing.

“Such bullshit. You’re blushing, Nicky. _Blushing._ I didn’t even know that skin of yours could colour, with how fucking grey you look. But here we have it, you’re blushing, and you’re not telling Aunt Andy why.”

Nicky nearly chokes on his coffee when Andy makes the aunt joke, and she seems absolutely delighted with herself.

“There is just… a new guy, in my flat.”

“Okay.” Andy looks at him. When it’s clear he isn’t going to elaborate, she makes an impatient gesture. “And?”

“He’s the hottest thing I have ever seen,” Nicky says in a single breath.

“Fucking hell, Nicky, you are thirsting? This look of pure agonised blushing puppy eyes is you thirsting after a flatmate?” Andy roars, and Nicky looks around in panic to see if anyone is overhearing them.

“Can you please just?” he makes a noise in his throat and gestures for Andy to quiet the fuck down.

“Sorry, this is gold. Quynh is going to love this. I might have to call her right now, actually.” But she doesn’t, not yet anyway, and that’s a small mercy Nicky will gladly accept. “So tell me more about your man.”

“He’s not my man.”

“The object of your unfiltered lust, then,” Andy settles on.

Nicky groans and hides his face in his hand, hating himself for ever choosing this place for his placement practice to begin with. He should have known, when he saw Andy, that it wasn’t just a vat of vast knowledge and experience that she would be sharing with him, but that she is also a horrible tease and the literal worst when it comes to things like this. Nicky hasn’t been the victim of this tunnel vision of hers before, and now he’s here, he finds that he really doesn’t fucking like it.

He also knows his cheeks are about as red as can be, and Andy is not being quiet about that, either. If he had any pride left after acting like a fucking social wreck around Joe for months now, it would surely have evaporated during this conversation.

“His name is Joe,” he groans.

“And?” Andy presses.

“He’s gorgeous, he can cook really well, he’s doing a master’s in art history. He has the most adorable bedhead.” He doesn’t tell Andy about Joe’s amazing body, but from the grin that’s on her face he knows that she knows. She can fill in the blanks just fine. Fucking Andy.

“Is he interested?”

“No,” Nicky says resolutely.

“He rejected you?”

“No.”

“Because you never asked. For fuck’s sake, Nicky, have you ever even talked to this guy?” Andy is enjoying this way too much. Why is she even interested in his pathetic love life? Doesn’t she have anything else to focus on? They had celebrated her fortieth birthday just last week (even though she had sabotaged both the cake and the birthday balloons to turn the offending numbers into thirty: “you must have read my birth date wrong, definitely not a day over thirty, this body”), and Nicky knows Quynh and her have been married since it became legal in 2014. She shouldn’t be this invested in him, and yet.

“Yes,” he sputters. “I have talked to him!” His defence grows louder at the doubtful look she sends him. “Just not very often. Or very well. He’s distracting.”

“And you haven’t gotten laid in forever so you’re a bit thirsty and a lot desperate,” Andy concludes.

“He probably thinks I’m a freak,” Nicky whines.

“Most likely,” Andy agrees, and Nicky fucking hates her.

–

Nicky has just put the lasagna in the oven and plopped down onto the sofa when the door opens. Joe comes in, hair and coat wet from the drizzle, a haunted look on his face that can only come from having spent the entire day studying in the library and feeling like you are so terribly, terribly underprepared for a final that your life might be about to end.

Nicky really feels the pain; he’s just had his final exam for the semester today, and there’s a reason why there’s lasagna cooking in the oven. Something has to soothe the pain in his soul, and nothing screams comfort food like his nonna’s lasagna.

“Have you eaten yet?” he asks Joe, and the guy looks at him like he’s just spoken in a language he doesn’t understand. And then he blinks and gives Nicky a weary smile.

“No, haven’t had time yet.”

“Do you like lasagna?”

“Does it have pork?”

Nicky’s about to ask what heathen would possibly put pork into a lasagna when he realises that Joe isn’t exactly asking it because he’s being a snob about flavouring.

“No, it’s vegetarian.”

“Then yes, I love it. Please. You’re my saviour.” And there’s that blinding smile that makes Nicky’s heart skip a beat.

Joe throws his backpack onto the floor and shrugs out of his jacket. He falls down onto the sofa next to Nicky, grimacing as the springs creak underneath his bouncing weight.

“I wouldn’t say that,” Nicky murmurs, trying his very best to keep his thoughts somewhat in order as he sends Chiara a text message that consists entirely of exclamation marks.

“You have no idea what kind of day I just had,” Joe sighs. “I’m so hungry I could eat a shoe, and it smells fantastic in here. You are my saviour, Nicky. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”

Nicky turns around, pretending to search for the remote so he can hide the blush that’s warming his cheeks. When Nicky opens his dusty Netflix account he’s surprised to see that his watchlist has expanded considerably since the last time he’s opened the app on the telly, and Joe looks sheepish when he notices Nicky’s confusion.

“They said that you never use it anyway, so I could, if I wanted to,” he explains.

“You’re a parasite, Joe,” Nicky sniffs, looking through the watchlist and seeing to his amusement that most of the movies there are either the kind of romantic that’s definitely on the wrong side of cheesy, or mindless blockbuster action movies. “Eating my food and using my Netflix account.”

“Guilty as charged,” Joe agrees. “Oh, we should watch the Bake-Off. Have you ever watched it?”

“Ah. No,” Nicky admits, and Joe gasps dramatically.

“How do you even survive? Now let this parasite teach you a thing or two about pure wholesomeness.”

When the timer goes off roughly twenty minutes after they have started the episode, they have just started on the tactical challenge and Nicky is properly invested. He goes to fetch the lasagna and Joe walks along with him to grab plates and silverware. He also sets the kettle to boil. While they wait for the lasagna to cool to a decent enough temperature that they can cut into it, Joe makes mint tea for them.

“Not sure if you like it, but if not then I’ll happily drink yours too,” Joe tells him as they sit back down, mugs placed on coasters on the scratched surface of the table and plates heaped full with lasagna in their laps.

They watch the episode while eating lasagna in silence, and when the episode is over, they have finished the entire tray between them. The mint tea is nice enough, but when Joe offers to make another cup Nicky declines. He’s really more of a coffee person, and his stomach is about to explode, anyway.

They start the next episode, but before they have even finished the signature bake both of them have dozed off, bodies slanted sideways as they lean against each other.

When Nicky startles awake a few hours later, Netflix is showing its _Are you still watching?_ pop-up, and Joe’s arm is slung over his waist, keeping him in place. His back hurts, his shoulders hurt, and there’s no way he’s going to be able to fall asleep again while sitting up, even if Joe is drooling adorably onto his shoulder. So, he shakes him awake.

“What?” Joe mumbles as he blinks to a state that could be considered wakefulness. He smacks his lips and Nicky’s heart flutters.

“We fell asleep. Come, let’s get you to a bed.”

Joe doesn’t disagree as Nicky pulls him up from the sofa and brings him to his room. Joe collapses atop the duvet, and there’s no question about it; he has immediately gone back to sleep.

Nicky cleans up their dishes and turns off the TV. He also takes the time to brush his teeth and change into his pyjamas. It takes a bit to get comfortable once he’s crawled under the covers. His nostrils are still full of the smell of coconut.

Nicky makes sure to set an alarm for 7 in the morning, even though he has the day off, so he can make sure Joe gets to his exam on time. As it turns out, he needn’t have worried; Joe is already eating breakfast and sitting on the sofa, blinking sleepily into his food. So Nicky turns around without letting his presence be known and goes back to bed.

–

Andy drops him off at home after the most disastrous day in the field he has ever had.

He’s had tough days, plenty of them, he deals with trauma every day he’s on his practical placement, he learns how to make calls and stabilise people in real trauma situations. He has seen people bleed out, he’s seen people die, and they have all stuck with him.

But today? Today was definitely the worst.

“You okay alone?” Andy asks as he drags himself out of the car.

“Yeah, fine. Thanks,” he says, and Andy really doesn’t look like she believes him, but she lets it go.

He unlocks the door to the flat and shoulders it open. The steep staircase to where they live on the first floor seems insurmountable at first, but he manages somehow. He walks into the narrow corridor and barely even notices the amazing smell that wafts through the flat as he walks onward, step by step, to his bedroom and his bed.

He is therefore very surprised when someone grabs his arm when he passes the kitchen, and it takes a couple of seconds for his brain to catch up with his eyes and recognise Joe, who is giving him a concerned look.

“Are you okay?” he asks.

“No,” Nicky croaks out, and Joe’s concern intensifies before he leans forward and pulls Nicky into a hug. Nicky must be disgusting after having been in the ambulance the entire day, he’s pretty sure he got puked on a couple hours into the shift, but Joe doesn’t seem to care. He just lets Nicky borrow his face into the crook of his neck, breathe in the strong scent of coconut and mint. He feels so warm, enveloped in Joe’s strong embrace, that it really is only a matter of two shaky inhales before he’s crying into Joe’s sweater.

Joe’s hand runs up and down his back soothingly, and Joe holds onto him until Nicky is retreating from his neck, sniffing miserably in a losing battle against his running nose. He must look absolutely disgusting, and he groans as he buries his face in his hands. He really wouldn’t mind sinking through the floor just about now.

“Hey, look at me, Nicky,” Joe says, his voice so soothing and so sweet. “Do you like curry?”

“What?”

“You shared your food with me when I was feeling bad, and now I’m sharing mine with yours.” When he sees that Nicky still looks miserable, he smiles. “I don’t like keeping things uneven, so if anything, do it for me?”

“Okay.”

“So why don’t you go and get a shower and then we can eat together afterward? Food is almost done.”

Nicky nods. He takes a shower and slips into the biggest hoodie he owns and the softest sweatpants, and he spends the rest of the evening watching Bake-Off with Joe and crying silently into his curry.

Somehow, the world doesn’t seem so bad anymore after they have finished the second episode and Joe has pulled Nicky’s head into his lap, his fingers carding through his hair.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me: I will update this soon!  
> Also me: *gets corona*  
> So yeah, that all didn't quite go as expected, sorry guys :(
> 
> I'm really overwhelmed by the response this little ficlet has gotten, though! Thanks to everyone who left kudos, commented, bookmarked and subscribed. All of you have really made me smile <3
> 
> I hope this was worth the wait!

At first, it just doesn’t seem that important.

It’s really none of Joe’s business. So what if one of his flatmates seems to be very much into praying in public spaces? He can even appreciate it; the guy really has a very beautiful voice, and Joe has always loved the sound of Italian. He even fully intends to weave his own understanding of the language into a conversation at some point.

But the reality is that he hardly runs into Nicky, and the first time they meet Joe has been living there for over two months already, which is actually quite ridiculous. Sure, Joe isn’t around that much, with the academic year slamming into him with all the grace and force of a sledge hammer (perhaps he _should_ have listened to Nile and done some reading and other prep work during the summer, but then again, it had been the _summer_ ), but two months is a really long time to first meet someone you literally share a shoebox-sized kitchen and a mouldy cave for a bathroom with. By that time Joe’s accidentally seen Alex’s dick more often than this mystical flatmate, and if he has to be honest, he would choose Nicky’s blue eyes and strong profile over that rather scarring sight any day.

They meet once in the kitchen, with Nicky coming out of a row of night shifts, and then when Joe has just come out of the bathroom. Nicky is polite and keeps his gaze carefully averted to prevent making eye contact with Joe’s abs. Not that Joe would have minded if he had snuck a look, of course; Joe might be busy, but he’s not blind:Nicky is hot.

Definitely hot enough that if they had met during different circumstances Joe would be bringing out his best moves to get close to him. Those eyes, after all, really are something else, the complexity of their colour quite the artistic challenge. Nicky, with his broad shoulders and the sharp lines of his jaw and profile, would be quite an amazing muse.

Of course, Joe has no idea what Nicky studies or where he works, his knowledge on the guy doesn’t expand much further than what his other flatmates had said when Joe first moved in: “Yeah, there’s another one, his name is Nicky. He’s weird, but he’s quiet. Just make sure you don’t accidentally use his pasta”. So Joe had been extra careful to not accidentally grab pasta from the wrong shelf, because while no one told him what would happen if he were to grab the wrong box, he gathers they’re probably not warning him just for the heck of it.

So, he has seen Nicky two times but he has overheard him more often by now, and while the hissed Italian is usually too soft for him to really catch any words, he has heard the phrase _mio Dio_ often enough to place it into the prayer category.

After a couple times Joe comes to the conclusion that Nicky actually isn’t praying. He can’t be, not with the amount of cussing that’s inserted into the conversation.

And then Joe overhears Nicky being awfully poetic about the gentle curve of some guy’s ass, and the sharp curves of their abs underneath tanned skin, and the interesting constellation of moles that spans across his shoulders.

Joe doesn’t judge, of course. He himself is about as ragingly gay as he possibly can be, so he is not going to look at Nicky differently because he turns into a male Sappho in response to some guy’s rocking body. Joe can even sympathise, because how many times has his appreciation for the male physique snuck its way into his own poetry? How many times has he sighed in the aftermath of some guy’s sweet smile, overwhelmed by the fluttering of butterflies in his stomach? Joe is an artist and a poet, he knows exactly how alluring such a sight can be.

It’s just that, well, he definitely would have told Nicky sooner that he understands Italian if he had known that this is where those conversations were going.

He feels a bit bad that Nicky is laying bare the most thirsty portions of his soul to the person on the other side of the phone, while in reality Joe, too, sometimes catches a snippet or two.

Of course, he tries to give Nicky all the privacy he deserves, and over time he develops an interesting Pavlovian response to the sound of the Italian’s voice, with him first squashing his almost overwhelming curiosity and him then hastily making himself scarce.

That all works out perfectly fine until he gets peckish during a study session. It’s not as much his hunger pains that he has to still as the pure boredom that has settled into every inch of his body. He has a paper coming up for one of his last master courses before his dissertation, and while he does think any part of art history is as important as the previous as well as the next, Joe simply has never seen much of the appeal of Dadaism. Where Romanticism nearly makes him drool with the skill and the potential so many of those artists and artworks show, Dadaism leaves him cold and sad, and the deadline is still far enough away that Joe hasn’t been kicked into panic-induced productivity by the looming deadline yet.

No, the panic is still a good 24 hours away, and while he is trying to be the wiser person for once and get a bit of a head start, the reality is that Joe really cannot be arsed.

With his snacks tucked away safely in the kitchen to make sure he doesn’t spend his study sessions eating his weight in sugar instead, Joe has no choice but to venture out of his room and into the shared living spaces.

Joe doesn’t even notice Nicky being there until Joe is stretched up on his tip-toes, cussing out the impossible height of his shelf under his breath as he navigates the bags in search of the bag of kruidnoten his parents had sent him a couple weeks ago. The voice catches him off-guard, with Nicky speaking much louder than he usually does, and also because Joe really had thought no one was there to witness his shame.

He glances over his shoulder briefly, in the direction of the living room, but Nicky is hidden behind the wall and Joe can only see the paused series on the screen of the telly. He sighs and goes back to his task, moving his jar of chunky peanut butter and making a noise in triumph when he sees the familiar red packaging.

“I still want to fuck him even though he makes a goddamn mess of the kitchen,” Nicky decides resolutely from the room next to the kitchen, and Joe fumbles. He barely catches the jar before it slams into the counter, his fingers shaking as he cradles it close to his chest. “I just don’t understand why someone needs so many burners to make a one-pot dish.”

Nicky chuckles, and his voice is so much prettier and lower when he speaks in Italian, and oh. Joe is weak.

He breathes in through his nose and out through his mouth as he stretches back up on his tip-toes, yanking the bag out from underneath the rest of the food with determination. Nothing else topples, and Nicky doesn’t pause, the voice on the other end of the phone apparently loud enough to keep Nicky appropriately preoccupied.

“Coconut,” Nicky says, and Joe’s mind is racing as he slides the jar of peanut butter back onto his shelf and then closes the cupboard. “Chiara, you haven’t even seen him. How could you possibly know that? No, he doesn’t walk around shirtless a lot, why are you even-”

Joe closes his bedroom door behind him.

He stares at the bag of kruidnoten in his hand.

“I’m really not sure if you’re worth it,” he tells the smiling guy that graces the packaging, and he shakes his head as he yanks the bag open.

He spends the next hour or so stuffing his face with the tiny biscuits and thinking of Nicky talking about _him_ in the next room over.

Because really, there’s no other option. Joe does make a mess out of the kitchen when he’s cooking, and sometimes he gets distracted and leaves everything to bubble away even during his absence, because when there’s a line of poetry or an image that suddenly flickers to life within his mind he needs to write it down or sketch it before it disappears into oblivion, but he does always clean up. And yes, four burners is entirely too much when making shakshouka, but Joe is a bit on the unorganised side of things.

He smells strongly of coconut, courtesy of that heavenly shampoo and conditioner that make his hair awfully soft, and no, he doesn’t walk around shirtless a lot.

Now he’s starting to think that that is maybe something he should be doing more frequently, though. There was definitely something wistful in Nicky’s voice when he’d said Joe didn’t do it often, after all. And who would Joe be to deny him such a simple pleasure?

He doesn’t get any further on his paper on Dadaism, and when he calls Nile the next day to complain about the unfairness of the deadline and how little time he has had to write the paper these past few weeks, she takes pity on him and invites him to her place for a prolonged study session. She makes fresh brownies for the occasion and huddles with him underneath her biggest, fluffiest blanket, and he somehow manages to hand in his paper on time.

He did want to tell her about Nicky, but he just doesn’t get around to it.

–

Joe likes Nicky.

He probably likes him a little too much for someone who he has talked to exactly twice and seen in passing only a handful more times, but Joe is not one to question matters of the heart.

The second time they actually have a conversation is after one of Joe’s panic-induced study sessions. He has the last final exam of the semester the day after, and while he spent the entire day in the library in order to revise, he still feels like he knows exactly nothing. Even Booker has taken pity on him, which showed itself by the extra thump on the shoulder he gave Joe when they parted ways outside the library. It’s camaraderie at its finest, in Booker’s most sophisticated way.

When he comes home, scaling that too steep staircase that must have been designed by a masochist, he is hungry, sad, demotivated and terrified. Nicky must have seen the haunted look on his face and sympathised, though, because his smile is almost blindingly kind when he offers Joe his food.

Of course, when Nicky stumbles in with a similar yet completely different broken look on his face a few weeks later, the least Joe can do is offer the very same in return. The curry is already mostly done by that point, and tasty enough for Joe to not feel too self-conscious to offer it in the wake of that mind-blowing lasagna.

When they get to the second episode of the evening, their empty plates and mugs on the table, Joe has already pulled Nicky’s head into his lap, his fingers carding through his soft hair, still slightly damp from the shower. The strands are sleek and uncooperative; every time Joe brushes them away from Nicky’s pale cheek they slide right back into position again. It’s a repetitive task, combing his fingers through Nicky’s hair, but it’s soothing for the both of them. After about ten minutes, Joe looks down with a retort about the showstopper challenge on his lips, but he stays silent and smiles instead when he sees that Nicky has fallen asleep, his long lashes quivering slightly as his eyes move underneath his closed eyelids.

So Joe sits, combs his fingers through Nicky’s hair, and lets him sleep. It’s serene, and it’s nice.

Yeah, Joe likes Nicky.

–

He is working on his literary research for his dissertation with Nile in the café on campus when he brings up his struggles.

“Hey, Nile,” he says, heaping a spoonful of honey into his mint tea.

“Hey, Joe,” Nile replies, grinning at him from over the rim of her laptop. Her fingers curl around the lid and close it, curling around her cappuccino instead. The lid of her laptop is covered by many stickers, most of them designed by Joe and herself for the on-campus LGBTQIA association. Joe himself is particularly proud of the asexual zebra design that Nile has given a spot of honour right over the Apple logo.

“So, hypothetically,” he starts.

Nile’s eyes widen and she squeals, bouncing in her seat ever so slightly. “What stupid thing did you do? Is this about the barista? He does look awfully cute in that beanie.” Nile’s voice is lowered to a conspirational whisper at this point, and she glances over her shoulder in a mockingly secretive way.

Joe hums, follows her line of sight, concludes that the barista is indeed pretty cute in that beanie, and then shrugs. “No.”

“Tell me,” she says, leaning forward over the table.

“Well, hypothetically.” Joe holds up a finger when Nile opens her mouth to interrupt him again, giving her a stern look that has her giggling. “If you were to speak a certain language, and your flatmate also speaks that certain language, and you decide that it’s really not important enough to tell him because, well, he only uses it to pray in? And then you overhear him one time and it turns out he’s not praying, and maybe you would like to let the person know that you can understand what they are saying but you are not sure how to do that without embarrassing them? How would you go about that?”

“Hypothetically,” Nile starts, drawing out her syllables until Joe tuts at her, letting her know that she’s got her point across alright, “I have no idea why you are telling me this now, because this sounds like something that has been going on a while and I am hurt, truly hurt, by your secrecy.”

“I’m sorry, it just really didn’t seem important!”

“Anyway, you could always do what Booker did.”

Joe pulls a face.

“It worked for him,” Nile defends.

Joe has to admit that yes, it had indeed worked for Booker, but Joe had never suffered through quite so many weeks of awkward three-wheeling before in his life and he would die a happy man if he would never have to suffer through anything like that ever again. Booker had considered himself to be a pure genius when he’d decided the way to Ella’s heart was to pretend he didn’t know English, and really, Joe should have listened to the only reasonable part of him that was screaming in favour of his self-preservation that he should just pretend that he didn’t know Booker, because such a ploy is just utterly ridiculous, but instead he’d done his duty as wingman extraordinarily well.

Fortunately for Booker, Ella didn’t think being deceived was a deal-breaker, if the explosive sex that followed Booker’s confession had been anything to go by. Considering that they are still together two years later probably also shows that Ella doesn’t have a particularly good sense of self-preservation either.

Anyway, it had been a disastrous few weeks.

He’s also not sure how Booker’s lack of common sense is going to help him in this situation, considering that Nicky has already established that Joe can speak English perfectly well, and now would be a bit late to feign Italian nationality.

“You could just be honest about it? Tell him why you didn’t mention it before and such. I don’t see why it has to be a big deal.”

Joe pulls another face at that.

Nile stares at him, and then she gapes at him. “What are you not telling me.”

So Joe tells her about Nicky’s poetic odes to Joe’s muscles, hair, and what Nicky has dubbed the blinding capabilities of his smile. Because as time has passed, Joe has overheard Nicky more often. Nicky had been especially vocal about Joe’s fantastic idea to fetch a new box of tea in just a towel after he’d run out, and yes, maybe Joe has been having a little fun with this all. He has been making more of an effort to walk around shirtless; he is a simple man, and Nicky’s words are so awfully flattering.

It had seemed harmless enough, anyway, when Nicky and he had only talked properly once, but now he’s starting to actually care for Nicky beyond just his blindingly beautiful eyes and the broadness of his shoulders, and he needs to fix this. There’s no way he can ask Nicky out if there’s such a big lie standing between them, and if he’s not going to bring it up now, then when can he? It’s speak up now or stay silent for eternity, and Joe really doesn’t do particularly well with the latter.

Nile has nearly fallen off her chair with laughter by the time Joe has finished.

“I need advice, not embarrassment!” Joe complains, trying to furrow his brows into a frown so she can fully feel the weight of his disappointment, but it’s a struggle; he is trying really hard to not laugh along with her.

“I’m sorry, Joe,” Nile says between giggles, wiping her eyes with her fingers. “It’s just… only you.”

–

It’s 1am on a Saturday night when Joe is woken up by the loud noises of one of Alex’s sexathons, which are an occurrence slightly more recurring than Joe really would have liked.

Emboldened by the conversation he had with Nile and her insistence that he should just come clean and tell Nicky, rip off the band-aid so to speak, Joe grabs his phone and texts Nicky.

He bites his lip and sends Nicky his favourite gif, a screaming cat with a flashing neon milky way in the background.

The answer comes nearly immediately.

 **Nicky:** Who is this?

Joe deflates for a second but then powers through.

_It’s Joe!_

**Nicky:** Hi Joe.

 **Nicky:** That gif is surprisingly accurate.

_Thanks! :D_

_Hey, if you’re not sleepy yet, do you maybe want to watch another episode of the GBBO in the living room?_

**Nicky:** Sure :)

_:D_

Joe climbs out of bed and slips on some sweatpants and a t-shirt. He finds a bag of microwaveable popcorn in his cupboard and is already feeding it into the microwave when he hears footsteps behind him. He smiles brightly when he sees Nicky, wrapped up nicely and warmly in a thick green blanket. His hair is a bit messy and his cheeks are slightly flustered. Nicky doesn’t appear to be much of a night owl; he looks contently sleepy already, the little smile that he sends Joe in return slightly more lopsided than Joe is really used to receiving from him.

It makes Joe’s body do things.

“You look adorable, like a grumpy leprechaun,” Joe says, not quite capable of keeping the fondness out of his voice.

“If that was a joke about my nose, I’m going to turn around right now,” Nicky threatens, but the glint in his eyes shows that he doesn’t really mean it.

“No!” Joe is quick to reply, making grabby hands at Nicky as he approaches him. He grabs two fistfuls of fluffy blanket and pulls Nicky further into the kitchen and in the direction of the shared living room. “It was a joke about it being green. Obnoxiously green.”

Nicky shrugs and mumbles something about it being pretty as he steps away from Joe and into the living room. He sinks down onto the sofa and turns on the telly. Joe joins him not much later with two mugs of mint tea and a bowl of popcorn to share. Nicky offers him a corner of the blanket and Joe settles underneath it happily.

“Did you change my icon?” Nicky asks, brows furrowed, as he opens the Netflix application and stares at Antoni’s face looking back at him where before there was just the blandness of Netflix’s green smiley face.

“Yeah, weeks ago,” Joe replies, popping the first pieces of popcorn into his mouth. “He kind of reminds me of you.”

Nicky squints at the telly and it’s clear that he’s not really seeing it. “Who is he?”

“Oh,” Joe replies intelligently. He’s not even sure why it surprises him so much that Nicky doesn’t know about the wonderful creation that is Queer Eye, considering that Nicky had never allowed himself the pleasure that is the GBBO either. As a matter of fact, the only thing that had been on Nicky’s list before Joe’s rather forceful takeover of his Netflix profile had been some medical show. Of course Nicky isn’t familiar with Netflix Originals. “It’s great. It’s about this group of five queer guys who visit people and change their lives.”

Nicky blinks. “Change their lives?”

“Yeah, they do makeovers. And mini therapy sessions.”

“And one of those guys reminds you of me.”

“Yes!” Joe says happily. “His name is Antoni, he’s the cook.”

“Oh.”

“You want to see it?”

“Yes.”

Nicky likes Queer Eye.

Of course he does; Nicky has surprisingly good taste. He has just never had anyone to give him the final push to get exposed to pop culture, and he’s probably too much of a responsible person to find his way on his own. It wouldn’t surprise Joe if Nicky spends most of his free time reading; he would be the kind of guy who even spends his relaxation time wisely. Joe really can’t wait to show him the craziness that is Drag Race sometime.

“Do you want to see another episode?” Joe asks once they’ve finished the first one, the popcorn mostly finished and the tea mugs emptied between them. Nicky is soft and pliant, curled up sweetly on the other side of the sofa, and Joe is forcefully reminded of that one night after Nicky’s horrible shift, when he’d fallen asleep while Joe combed his fingers through his hair. His fingers itch for a repeat of that, but he’s not quite sure it will go over well if he offers his lap for Nicky to sleep on.

Nicky looks at him, blinking those big, sleepy eyes of his. “I should probably go to bed,” he says, hiding a yawn behind his hand. Still, he doesn’t move.

Joe just keeps smiling at him, hoping to transfer some of his excitement and hopefulness to Nicky.

“Or I could watch another episode,” Nicky finally decides, shifting a little to make himself more comfortable. His toes brush against Joe’s thigh as he moves, and then stay there as Joe starts the next episode.

–

“You’re an idiot,” Nile says fondly as she wiggles her toes against Joe’s thigh, trying to get them nestled into the warmth between his legs. Joe lets them with only minimal whining, even though the iciness of her feet causes his skin to pebble in response.

“I know,” he agrees. “And you’re a freaking icicle, how are your toes this cold?”

“You’re just warm!” Nile protests, curling her toes and nestling them into the soft flesh of Joe’s thighs. “But we’re not talking about my failing circulation. We’re talking about your failing romancing skills.”

“My romancing skills are just fine,” Joe defends. “It’s just… he’s going to be so embarrassed.”

“He should have thought of that before he started thirsting after you in your living room!” Nile protests, and Joe scrambles to press his hand over her mouth, shushing her loudly. Nicky and he don’t share a wall, but he doesn’t want to risk Nicky overhearing him and Nile if he happens to walk past. That would be disastrous.

There is only one way for him to break the news to Nicky and that is to do it gently. Nile screaming it from the rooftops is about the opposite of that.

“I will tell him,” Joe promises.

Even in the darkness he can sense the unvoiced challenge on Nile’s face, but she drops it.

When Joe’s alarm goes early in the morning to signal the morning prayer, Nile wakes up as well. She grumbles for a moment and then squints at his alarm clock, making a triumphant noise when she does the maths.

“Three more hours of sleep, heck yeah,” she mumbles, stealing Joe’s pillow from underneath his head and cradling it to her chest as Joe rouses unhappily from his own slumber. He tries to climb over her without accidentally elbowing her in the stomach, and he’s somewhat successful.

Of course, Nicky runs into them a few hours later, when Joe is making scrambled eggs for breakfast and Nile is leaning against the counter, wearing some of Joe’s paint-speckled sweatpants and an oversized football shirt. Joe is just telling her about the struggles he is running into with his literary research when she makes a noise in her throat, and when he glances over his shoulder Nicky is standing in the doorway.

He looks awkward and slightly panicked, his gaze flickering from Joe to Nile and back. He’s already fully dressed, clearly here to get his morning coffee before heading off to class. Joe gives him one of his blinding smiles, courtesy of waking up next to Nile’s smiling face – she is one of those people who are completely functional when they wake up; Joe is convinced she might be some kind of alien – and having already downed a mug of coffee of his own, the second one standing happily steaming next to the stove.

It’s then that he realises that this is probably not looking good.

 _Maybe_ Joe should have pulled on a t-shirt for this occasion, at least it would have looked slightly less suspicious.

As it is, he is pretty sure he can read the panicked part of Nicky’s expression pretty clearly; the guy seems to think that he’s walking in on something private.

 _Maybe_ Joe should have slipped into a conversation that he is a raging homosexual.

But hey, if Joe had such an easy time slipping important things into conversations with Nicky, perhaps this entire situation would have looked completely different and it wouldn’t have been Nile’s icy toes between his thighs but Nicky’s last night.

Wishful thinking, of course, but the thought is pleasant nonetheless.

“Good morning!” Joe says excitedly, stepping to the side so Nicky can see that Joe is only hogging a single burner this time. “There’s plenty of space for you!”

“Morning.” Nicky looks decidedly unhappy to no longer be able to make a dignified exit, and he drags himself into the kitchen with all the reluctance of a kitten about to be bathed.

“Good morning!” Nile greets, grinning her blinding smile at Nicky as he opens the cupboard to retrieve his coffee grounds and percolator. “I’m Nile. I’m so sorry for intruding in your kitchen, I got dumped last night and Joe’s spent all night trying to make me feel better. Apparently that includes breakfast.”

Joe gapes at her for a second, because getting dumped would mean having been in a relationship, and Nile is definitely more of the pining than the committing kind. She sends him a look that makes his brain go _oh_ , and he belatedly nods his agreement to Nile’s little lie.

Nicky, in the meantime, frowns at Nile and looks completely sincere as he says, “I am so sorry to hear that.”

“It’s fine, he has been telling me I can do better for weeks, so it really was about time,” Nile says quickly.

“Still, that does not make heartbreak any easier,” Nicky says, his voice so earnest and his gaze so intense. Joe can see Nile waver slightly under it, and Joe’s own heart is beating a most erratic rhythm in response to Nicky’s words.

Nicky puts the percolator over the stove and excuses himself to grab some stuff from his bedroom, and Nile gapes at Joe after he has left.

“That’s him,” she decides.

“Yeah, that’s him,” Joe agrees with a nod.

“You are so fucking screwed,” Nile squeals. Joe snorts into his coffee because yes, he knows. Thanks, Nile.

When Nicky returns Joe offers him some eggs, but Nicky declines.

“I’m in a hurry,” he says bitterly, and once his coffee has finished brewing he cleans his little machine and then downs the coffee before it’s had any time to cool down properly. He wishes them a good day and is out the door.

“Mamma mia,” Nile says after the front door closes, and Joe makes a grab for her that she avoids while giggling.

–

Joe overhears Nicky again, and his stomach clenches with guilt when he hears Nicky mention how kind he is.

How he doesn’t know if Joe is into guys, but he doesn’t think so.

–

“There’s never going to be a good time,” his sister says during one of their weekly Friday evening video calls. She has just shooed her husband out of the way, who had been intent on re-enacting the Lion King with their Dachshund, and Joe’s cheeks and stomach are aching from laughing so much. At the sympathy in her voice, his smile drops, and he sighs as he rests his forehead against the cool wood of his desk.

“I know.”

–

He rips off the band-aid when he runs into Nicky after Nicky has just finished showering. By now the reverse has already happened about four times, with Joe grinning widely as he shuffles past Nicky and Nicky pretending that the ceiling is the most interesting thing he has ever seen (except that one time, when Nicky’s gaze had wandered and then stuck to his pecs, and perhaps Joe had taken his time to get past Nicky that time, dropping his soap bottle so he would have an excuse to bend down, causing his towel to slip just that little bit extra), but running into Nicky when he’s in such a vulnerable position is a truly miraculous event.

Of course, Nicky is the kind of guy who brings a change of clothes into the bathroom with him, and he looks adorably cuddly in those pyjama pants that are slightly too tight around his muscular thighs. His t-shirt has a hole in it on his stomach, a piece of pale skin peeping through, and Joe could hook his index finger in there rather easily to pull Nicky close.

But not yet.

He’s not going to make a move before he’s finally, finally told Nicky the truth.

So when Nicky wants to walk past him, Joe plants his hand on the wall next to him and effectively blocks his way. Once Nicky’s come to a halt, he drops his arm back at his side again.

Nicky’s tired eyes meet his, the question in them clearly legible, and Joe forces himself not to look at Nicky’s lips as he gathers the courage needed.

“I need to tell you something,” he says, maybe a little bit too forcefully.

Nicky’s frown just grows deeper. “Okay,” he says, licking his lips nervously, and yes, okay, Joe has definitely lost that battle.

So his gaze is focussed intently on Nicky’s mouth instead when he continues.

“I, uh, can speak Italian.”

“Okay,” Nicky says slowly. Joe waits for the realisation to settle in. Nicky’s eyes widen slightly when it does, and Joe can see a dusting of colour start to form high on those sharp cheekbones. “That is- okay. Is there anything else you want to say?”

“No, that’s- that’s all.”

Nicky nods, not meeting Joe’s eyes, and then steps past him to hurry to his bedroom.

And, okay, maybe that could have gone better.

 _You should have told him months ago,_ a voice that sounds a lot like Nile and his sister and Booker at the same time whispers in his ear (it’s an oddly specific voice).

–

Joe is halfway prepared to never see Nicky again.

Instead, it’s only two days later and around dinner time when someone is knocking on his bedroom door. He grabs the towel he keeps next to his easel and rubs some of the still-wet paint from his fingers as he opens his door, peeking out his head and expecting to see basically anyone but Nicky, who still doesn’t meet his eyes as he fidgets with the hem of his hoodie.

His cheeks are rosy and it’s a wonderful contrast to the brightness of his eyes, and if Joe hadn’t been painting him already he definitely would have needed to now.

“Hey!” he greets, trying not to sound too relieved at seeing Nicky’s face again.

“Do you want to, uh, eat dinner with me?” Nicky asks.

Their gazes meet and Joe is overwhelmed by the determination in Nicky’s eyes, and he cannot help but smile his broadest grin at Nicky’s request.

“Of course!” So what if Joe sounds entirely too desperately enthusiastic?

“Okay,” Nicky says, nodding. “It’s done in about ten minutes.”

“I will be there!” Joe says, and Nicky nods again and then turns around. Joe doesn’t close his door again until Nicky is back at the stove. He allows himself to look at Nicky’s truly criminally round ass, accentuated beautifully by the snug fit of his jeans, and the way the fabric of the hoodie stretches over his broad shoulders.

So yeah, Joe stands there for a couple minutes just gaping before he closes the door and rushes back to his easel. He cleans his brushes quickly and then changes out of his paint-stained clothes, exchanging them for skinny jeans and a band t-shirt that clings nicely to his torso. He knows Nicky has a bit of a weak spot for his chest, after all.

He washes his hands and arms in the bathroom, and Nicky is already plating up by the time he finally joins him in the kitchen. The food smells amazing, the ragù reminding him a little of the shakshouka he still hasn’t made for Nicky.

They sit down on the sofa where Netflix is already waiting for him.

“Thanks, Nicky, this is fantastic,” Joe says after he’s tasted the first bite, and Nicky sends him a bashful smile.

“Thanks.”

They watch the third episode of Queer Eye together, eating in silence. It’s familiar and strange at the same time. The air is filled with some odd kind of static, with the promise of more and the presence of less settling over them, and Joe isn’t sure what Nicky wants. If he wants to just eat dinner as friends and pretend that there was never anything fizzling between him, or that this is maybe more.

Joe hardly dares to let himself hope.

But it’s clear Nicky hasn’t taken the news as badly as Joe was expecting, considering that Nicky cooked enough to have Joe join him and then actually invited him, too.

Joe spends more time watching Nicky than the telly, unable to focus as he slowly eats Nicky’s food. The dish is amazing, the sauce brimming with flavour, and Joe really isn’t appreciating it as much as he should. But how can he, when Nicky sits beside him, pushing his pasta around on his plate and closing and opening his mouth like something too big for him to contain is threatening to spill out at any moment?

Joe’s heart is having a field day in his chest, and his palms are clammy, and he feels like he’s fifteen again, on the precipice of getting his first kiss.

“He is a bit like me,” Nicky agrees as Antoni does his segment, his voice breaking through the silence.

“Who do you think is the most like me?” Joe asks out of curiosity, some of the tension in his body fading. He puts his plate down on the coffee table and grabs his mug of mint tea, looking at Nicky as he takes a sip.

Nothing, however, prepares him for the sheer intensity of Nicky’s gaze as he turns to look at him and says, “You have the best qualities of all of them.”

And that’s one big fucking compliment.

So Joe blinks at Nicky, remembers that he’s got a mouthful of tea in his mouth and forces himself to swallow. Still, his mouth feels oddly dry in the aftermath of that particular comment.

Cracking under the pressure, Nicky blurts out, “You don’t think it’s weird? All the things I said about you?”

“I haven’t overheard much,” Joe says, feeling the need to defend himself and protect Nicky from his own humiliation. “Just a few snippets.” Nicky doesn’t reply and the intensity of his gaze doesn’t waver. “But no, I don’t think it’s weird. Honestly? It’s really flattering. And pretty fucking hot.”

Nicky puts his own plate next to Joe’s. “You think so?” he asks, his gaze locked on Joe’s mouth.

“Yeah.”

When their lips touch, all Joe can think is, _finally_.

Nicky’s lips taste of ragù, and his hands are warm and soft as his fingers tangle in Joe’s curls.

They somehow manage to eat dinner and finish the episode. They even do the dishes and put away the leftovers before their lips lock again, and there is no way in the world that they will be going slow. They have been circling each other for nearly half a year, and both of them are buzzing with relief and need.

They go to Joe’s room because it’s closest, even though it’s a mess, covered in journals and books and papers for his dissertation and art supplies, but Nicky doesn’t seem to notice, and if he does, he doesn’t mind.

As they tangle in the sheets together, Nicky finally murmuring his poetic appreciation for Joe’s abs against the skin of Joe’s neck instead of into a phone, Joe talks back to him in kind, Italian lending itself perfectly for the fire of his passion. Nicky’s eyes are dark with want and desire, and he grows harder against Joe’s thigh when he hears Joe’s whispered words before he captures Joe’s babbling lips in a hungry, fiery kiss.

It’s perfect.  
  
  



End file.
